Professor H. Littledale writing from Baroda says:—­“The Large Cuckoo-Shrike is a permanent resident here.  I found six nests last August near Baroda, each with one egg; and my men found a nest building in the Police Lines at Khaira on the 10th October.”

Mr. J. Davidson informs us that “a pair of Graucalus macii were apparently breeding near this place (the Kondabhari Ghat).  He found a nest with two young in the previous September near the same place.”

Mr. G.W.  Vidal, referring to the South Konkan, says:—­“Common; breeds in February and March.”

A nest that was placed in the fork of a bough was composed entirely of slender twigs, the petioles of some pennated-leaved tree, bound together all round the outside with abundance of cobwebs, so that notwithstanding the incoherent nature of the materials the nest was extremely firm.  It is a shallow saucer quite of the Dicrurine type, with a cavity 3 inches in diameter and barely 0.75 in depth.

The eggs are typically of a somewhat elongated oval, a good deal pointed towards one end, but some are broader and more of a typical Shrike shape.  The eggs are of course considerably larger than those of Lanius lahtora.  The shell is compact and fine, and faintly glossy.  The ground-colour is a palish-green stone-colour, greener in some, and somewhat more creamy in others.  The markings are very Shrike-like, and consist of brown blotches, streaks, and spots, with numerous clouds and blotches of pale inky-purple, which appear to underlie the brown markings.  The markings in some eggs are all very faint, and, as it were, half washed out, while in others they are very bright and clear.  In some these are comparatively sparse and few; in others close-set and numerous, especially in a broad zone near the large end; but this zone is by no means invariably present; in fact, not above one in five eggs exhibit it.  There is something in these eggs which reminds one of some of the Terns’ eggs; and although, when compared with a large series of L. lahtora, individuals of this latter species may be found resembling them to a certain extent, I do not think that at first sight any zoologist would have felt sure that they were Shrike’s eggs.

They vary in length from 1.12 to 1.41 inch, and in breadth from 0.8 to 0.95 inch, but the average of eight eggs is 1.26 by 0.9 inch nearly.

Subfamily ARTAMINAE.

512.  Artamus fuscus, Vieill. The Ashy Swallow-Shrike.

Artamus fuscus, V., Jerd.  B. Ind. i, p. 441; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 287.

Mr. R. Thompson says:—­“I have frequently found the nests of the Ashy Swallow-Shrike, and have watched the old birds constructing them, but never took down their eggs.  Two or three pairs may always be found nesting on the long-leaved pine, as one comes up from Kaladoongee to Nyneetal and passes halfway up from the first dak chokee at Ghutgurh.  They lay in May and June, constructing their nest on the horizontal extension of a main branch of some lofty tree, generally Pinus longifolia.  The nest, composed of fine grasses, roots, and fibres, is a loose, only slightly cup-shaped structure, some 5 inches in diameter.”